page_title: Scandinavian Mountains
section_title: Quaternary geology
hierarchical_section_title: Scandinavian Mountains / Geology / Quaternary geology
caption_attribution_description: English&#160;: Europe during its last glaciation, about 20,000 to 70,000 years before present, in northern Europe called Weichselian Glaciation, in the Alpine Region Würm Glaciation. The Extent of glaciation, sea and lakes have been painted freehand according to [1] and File:Map of Alpine Glaciations.png Français&#160;: Europe durant la dernière glaciation, entre environ 20,000 et 70,000 ans avant aujourd'hui&#160;; appelé Weichsélien ou Vistulien en Europe du Nord et glaciation de Würm dans les Alpes. L'étendue de la glaciaiton (inlandis), les mers et les lacs ont été dessinés à la main selon www.diercke.de: Würm-/Weichseleiszeit (letzte Eiszeit) - Vergletscherung et File:Map of Alpine Glaciations.png
context_page_description: The Scandinavian Mountains or the Scandes is a mountain range that runs through the Scandinavian Peninsula. The Scandinavian Mountains are often erroneously thought to be equivalent to the Scandinavian Caledonides, an ancient mountain range and orogen covering roughly the same area. The western sides of the mountains drop precipitously into the North Sea and Norwegian Sea, forming the fjords of Norway, whereas to the northeast they gradually curve towards Finland. To the north they form the border between Norway and Sweden, reaching 2,000 metres high at the Arctic Circle. The mountain range just touches northwesternmost Finland but are scarcely more than hills at their northernmost extension at the North Cape.
  The mountains are not very high but are very steep in places; Galdhøpiggen in South Norway is the highest peak in mainland Northern Europe, at 2,469 metres; Kebnekaise is the highest peak on the Swedish side, at 2,104 m, whereas the slope of Halti is the highest point in Finland, at 1,324 m, although the peak of Halti is situated in Norway.
context_section_description: Many slopes and valleys are straight because they follow tectonic fractures that are more prone to erosion. Another result of tectonics in the relief is that slopes corresponding to footwalls of normal faults tend to be straight.
  There is evidence that the drainage divide between the Norwegian Sea and the south-east flowing rivers were once further west. Glacial erosion is thought to have contributed to the shift of the divide, which in some cases ought to have been in excess of 50 km. Much of the Scandinavian Mountains has been sculpted by glacal erosion. The mountain chain is dotted with glacial cirques usually separated from each other by pre-glacial paleosurfaces. Glacier erosion has been limited in these paleosurfaces which form usually plateaus between valleys. As such the paleosurfaces were subject of diverging and slow ice flow during the glaciations. In contrast valleys concentrated ice flow forming fast glaciers or ice streams. At some locations coalesced cirques form arêtes and pyramidal peaks. Glacial reshaping of valleys is more marked in the western part of the mountain chain where drowned glacier-shaped valleys constitute the fjords of Norway. In the eastern part of the mountain chain, glacial reshaping of valleys is weaker. Many mountain tops contain blockfields which escaped glacial erosion either by having been nunataks in the glacial periods or by being protected from erosion under cold-based glacier ice. Karst systems, with their characteristic caves and sinkholes, occur at various places in the Scandinavian Mountains, but are more common in the northern parts. Present-day karst systems might have long histories dating back to the Pleistocene or even earlier.
  Much of the mountain range is mantled by deposits of glacial origin including till blankets, moraines, drumlins and glaciofluvial material in the form of outwash plains and eskers. Bare rock surfaces are more common in the western side of the mountain range. Although the ages of these deposits and landforms vary, most of them were formed in connection to the Weichselian glaciation and the subsequent deglaciation.
  The Cenozoic glaciations that affected Fennoscandia most likely began in the Scandinavian Mountains. It is estimated that during 50% of the last 2.75 million years the Scandinavian Mountains hosted mountain-centered ice caps and ice fields. The ice fields from which the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet grew out multiple times most likely resembled today's ice fields in Andean Patagonia. During the last glacial maximum (ca. 20 ka BP) all the Scandinavian Mountains were covered by the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet, which extended well beyond the mountains into Denmark, Germany, Poland and the former USSR. As the ice margin started to recede 22–17 ka BP the ice sheet became increasingly concentrated in the Scandinavian Mountains. Recession of the ice margin led the ice sheet to be concentrated in two parts of the Scandinavian Mountains, one part in South Norway and another in northern Sweden and Norway. These two centres were for a time linked, so that the linkage constituted a major drainage barrier that formed various large ephemeral ice-dammed lakes. About 10 ka BP, the linkage had disappeared and so did the southern centre of the ice sheet a thousand years later. The northern centre remained a few hundred years more, and by 9,7 ka BP the eastern Sarek Mountains hosted the last remnant of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet. As the ice sheet retreated to the Scandinavian Mountains it was dissimilar to the early mountain glaciation that gave origin to the ice sheet as the ice divide lagged behind as the ice mass concentrated in the west.
caption: Reconstruction of Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum of the Weichselian and Würm glaciations periods. note that the whole of the Scandinavian Mountains are covered with glacier ice (white).
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